The Day of My Daughter's Wedding
by FanSlewFantasy
Summary: AU. Feliciano is marrying the son of a powerful family, and this means Lovino is left to reflect on a lover he had lost to the arms of betrayal and the walls of family and obligation. Yaoi, AntonioxLovi, Dl;DR A little long but worth it I hope. :


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**~THE DAY OF MY DAUGHTERS WEDDING~**  
>A Hetalia Axis Powers Fanfiction*Presented by FanSlewFantasy 2011<br>_SpainxRomano+GermanyxItaly _***R16*  
>~ANGST~BUTTSECKS~TSUNDRE GOODNESS~LANGUAGE~YAOIS~<br>…**

_ICECREAM AT MIDNIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS!_

_Hell to the yeah. Lets do this shit! Totally do not own hetalia or the characters. I don't own the godfather either, ye._

…

"**Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever."**

…

"Ve~ Lovi, be careful!"

"I am being careful! Stop squirming!" I drew the comb away from his head as fast as I could, to avoid scratching him with it. "You need to learn to sit still!"

Feliciano sighed and wiggled in his seat a little, eyes fixed on my reflection working above him. "You don't need to be so grumpy fratello. Really."

I scowled bitterly and reached forward for the can of hairspray cast carelessly on the mahogany dressing table. I wasn't being grumpy! He was just being a bride-zilla.

The day of Feliciano's wedding had dawned bright and warm. Watery gold sunlight cracking through my leaded bedroom windows, the scent of roses fluttering on a soft breeze and humming voices, from the kitchen downstairs, rising in volume until, at about ten am, they crested and I stood, bleary eyes and faintly ill, pulling on my shirt and trousers like I would on any normal day.

By the time I got downstairs, preparations were already well underway. Servants, most of them tanned and speaking in hurried Italian, bore vases overflowing with flowers, silver trays of food and champagne, and wedding wear freshly pressed from the laundry. Still others, blonde haired and whispering in jagged German, carried white chairs from the basement outside, through open doors in the country house kitchen through to the pergola set up in the middle of a perfectly manicured lawn. From there, down the hall, I found Feli, struggling to take on his dress, hair in a spectacular mess, cheeks ruddy with panic.

"Lovino! Thank goodness you're here! Please help!"

And so, here I was.

Feliciano had let me make-up his already perfect skin, to a point it seemed airbrushed and porcelain. For his lips he had chosen dark frosted red, heart-shaped and full and glossy they pressed together in concentration as I had applied his mascara. Long lashes, ones that could almost be false, batted and framed rare topaz eyes. With high cheekbones and a pert little nose, he looked breathtaking. Doll-like. It was disturbing.

Because every time I looked into his eyes, it was like looking into a mirror.

This was very nearly me.

"Pass me that barrette." I requested, administering a spray of hair-product and twirling a lock of auburn around my finger. I had set it all in curls, bouncy and spiralling. They looked very well on him, framing a painted face, red brown corkscrews shining and shifting every time he titled his head, and I intended to see if I could pin them up nicely, into a fancy arrangement with some pearls and ribbons. My fingers were nimble; I had been told.

The thought brought a blush to my cheeks; I bowed my head and took the silky white bow with a hairpin attached, pursing it between my lips and trying to figure out how to do it. Maybe if I combed a section back from his forehead…

It took about ten minutes, to get his hair fixed into a neat little curly beaded edifice, that one stray curl twirling to one side suggestively. He didn't make the job easy for me, but I managed, and he seemed delighted with the results.

"Ve~ Lovino it looks so wonderful!"

"Good. Now come here and I will help you into the dress."

He slid from his chair, the soft white silk of his lacy camisole sliding over smooth tan thighs as he stood and stretched, body slender and waif-like. The necklace around his neck, a long white rosary bearing the form of Christ, clinked and tinkered in motion with his body.

"Lift up your arms." I reached for the beautiful crepe and silk dress resting on the back of the chair. "There are no sleeves."

"There's a zipper on the back silly, and I can't put that on yet, you have to tie me in." he reached for what looked like a ribbed white corset, cast carelessly beside the bouquet on the windowsill. "And I've got to put the stockings and suspenders on too." He brushed a loose curl off his forehead, long lashes fluttering. I couldn't help but notice the proud lift of his chin; he seemed talker, with his hair up like that.

"Well hurry up then. I have to be in the office soon."

"Ah, right oh." He began unlacing the corset and lilted toward me, so I could help. His tight little smile was bitter with pity. "How could I forget."

…

"You have offended me, and you have insulted my family." My father was a stout man with a bristling, stiff aura. He wore starched shirts, neatly pinned by hand design and accented by blazers worth more than a servants house. The red rose borne in his buttonhole was as fake as his good intentions. "You come in here, a runner boy for a filthy cartel, and attempt to sell me _this_." He gestured to the small square of paper, on which a pyramid of dirty powder sat, with disgust "Instead of the cocaine I was promised. Did you think I wouldn't notice? Do you think you can get away with this? Really?"

The stranger standing opposite him clenched his fists by his sides, but said nothing. Only the little blue vein fluttering in the side of his throat betrayed his fear.'

He didn't look, I thought as I leant over my fathers shoulder to retrieve the colt from his desk drawer, anything like the other drug runners they had sent. For one, he didn't look the least bit like an addict. His skin was too healthy looking, his eyes too even. He didn't look Columbian either, though he spoke next with the heavy, almost unintelligible Latin accent of a native Spanish speaker. Maybe from further Middle America, I pondered. Venezuela, Costa Rica…

"I don't know what you could possibly be meaning, that is the finest Columbian product."

"This is shit!" my father jumped and I pulled my arm out of the way, forsaking the hunt for bullets in the drawer. He noticed and carelessly dug around to shove them in my hand. I gave him a brief thanks, and seemingly, at the sound of my voice, the man being questioned noticed me for the first time.

I fumbled the magazine of the weapon, heart leaping to the back of my tongue when eyes of an unholy green focused precisely on my face. They were feline, dangerous, jewelled with emerald and ebony gauntlets. His brows creased, then smoothed. A brief flare of slim nostrils, his thin lips twitched, the careless way he let that gaze slide off me felt like wax. A candle dripping across my flesh, the remains leaving a thick, pealing skin behind.

I shivered.

"That, is the stuff my superiors gave me. I was assured it is pure." He spoke on with a smooth, composed tone. My father scoffed and avoiding looking at the stranger, I clipped the gun all up ready to fire. My hand shook a little. I wasn't sure I was comfortable shooting this man, there was something about him… I had felt it as soon as he had walked through the door.

Maybe it was the fact he wore black jeans and a t-shirt. No shoes, no suit… maybe it was his smell, a rolling cloud of cinnamon I could sense purring across the room. He had this… aura. It was unnerving.

But I knew what I had to do.

"It's okay, Daddy, I will sort it." My fingers brushed his cheek and he grunted, waving a ringed hand in dismissal.

"Take him out back. Don't make a mess, and don't let Feli see."

The man's bronzed face blanched at that, sheet white, his lips parted in a shocked cry. I set my jaw and nodded.

"Come with me." I beckoned to the stranger. He stood firm where he was, eyes dilated in fear and nowhere near as drilling as they had been mere minutes ago. I knew how it went for the new ones. When things swung from shouting to shooting so fast they couldn't believe it, it often stripped them of all dignity and airs. It made it a lot easier to roll my eyes and stalk around the desk to his side. His arm in my hand was firm with muscles, but stiff with fear.

"Wait!" he managed, looking at my father. "Wait, no, I'm sorry. I can get you new stuff, fresh stuff!"

"Ha!" my father stood in triumph. "You admit its not the original?"

"No! I split it, sold half, bulked with talcum powder! Now please, _please,_ let me go!"

A sneer.

"Lovino get him out of my sight."

That was my signal. I yanked him backward and headed for the door, the lilac silk of my shirt cuff crinkled when he wrenched his arm around, gripping and fingering desperately at my wrists.

"Let me go, please, please let me-"

"Shut up!" I shoved him through the door, his body hitting the wood panel wall off the hallway, and took the opportunity to shut it behind us before he realised I had let him go. My grip returned to his bicep swiftly, I yanked him to his feet and he growled, meaning to hit me with his other hand. Unsuccessful, but off putting. I gasped and brought the heel of the gun around and into the side of his face with a fleshy thump. His head snapped around, when I pulled the gun back it was not bloody, but almost instantaneously a small spattering rain of blood fell to the carpet, soaking into the cream. When his face lifted, and he glowered at me through a curtain of waving dark fringe, I could see why. Blood slicked his lips, he spat at me, a thick glutinous wad that hit my cheek and cored with something sharp and hard that turned out to be a tooth. He licked his upper lip and it was evident he had bitten down on his tongue. A trail of scarlet dribbled down his chin and throat.

A mess.

"_Lovino._"

"Bastard!" I hissed, disbelieving. Had he just…cheeks burning from the sound of my name on those swollen lips, I swiped the blood off my face and jerked him down the hall. He stumbled heavily behind, putting up a wild fight, the hand holding my gun trembled for reasons I couldn't explain. I was a little more agitated than I should have been, men had been a lot viler with me on their march to death, but it didn't matter. The thick sound of him spitting blood everywhere he could as we walked rubbed me in just the wrong way.

The room at the end of the hall opened into the back, the small brick terrace where the dumpster and recycling went. The walls were cracked and old, covered in moss, and ivy climbed the height of them ambitiously. At seeing the cramped space, he gave a new twist in attempt to escape. I snarled and pulled him in, door clapping shut behind me.

"Don't you even think about shooting me!" he threatened weakly. "Lovino, Think about it-"

"Don't call me that!" I didn't like it. I actually hated it. I kicked him in the side and fumbled to raise my gun, aiming it at his head. "Don't you _dare _use my name!"

"Why not? It's a pretty name, _Lovi~"_ I kicked myself when a small, desperate smirk signalled he had found a weak spot. It triggered him to speak with a feral lowness, something akin to the way he had looked at me for the first time in that office, and it made my stomach leap as though I was going to be sick. "Betcha don't want to know mine, do you? Betcha it's a lot easier to _murder_ someone when you don't know their name."

"Shut up." my hand was shaking still, I didn't want to pull the trigger until it stilled. My voice was a lot steadier than I felt. "Just shut up." sweat beaded on my brow and I tossed my hair aside. "Don't move, and it won't hurt as much."

"I'm Antonio." He grinned, bearlike. The sharp of his canines, smeared with pink blood, made my veins turn to glass. "Antonio Carriedo. Nice to meet you."

The tremble in my grip became much more noticeable. I squeezed my eyes closed and swallowed the thickening spit in my mouth. A soft pull of breath, I tensed my finger on the trigger.

_One squeeze was all it would take._

"If you're going to shoot me hurry up!"

"Shut it!" my voice spiked and I shook my head, brain filled with images of the men I've shot before. The way their heads throw back, flay of the blood that splatters the wall. Their bodies crumpling onto the pavement.

Somewhere deep inside the house, someone put a CD on. Piano. It was mellow and sorrowful.

The gun clattered as if fell from my grip. My name on a soft breath…

"Lovino."

_Antonio._

…

"Ah…"

In the dark, a heavy rustle of blankets, the huff of hot breath, skin sliding, purring across perfect, bronzed skin. His hands traced my hips, thumb and forefinger stroking longingly, back lifting off the bed and lazing only to draw me down closer, deeply into his trap. My shaking hands caressed his cheeks, fingertips raking the soft roots along his hairline and thumbing the rim of his ears. His kisses tasted like ginger biscuits and some other warm, spicy delight. His body was flawless, perfectly formed and heaving beneath me regularly, feeling of honeyed muscles and the sweat of a man slick beneath my fingertips.

"'Tonio…"

"Lovino." Those hot hands groped my pelvic bone, slim fingers buckling firmly against the hand of my ass and squeezing firmly. My head rolled back, tongue flicking up to lick a drip of sweat from my upper lip, and his mouth secured possessively on my jaw.

Antonio made love with all the heat and passion promised by flashing jade green eyes, his body inside of me was possessive and moreish, and the desperation he serviced me with was entirely dedicated, hotly focused. He was an uncontrollable lover, pulling me and pushing me powerfully, demanding my voice from my chest and hammering pleasure from every nerve ending into my body. My lips, sore with lust, made the shape of his name over and over in ragged silence, my muscles quivered. Stiff nipples grating against his chest were hot and tingling as he impaled me. But he lost patience quickly, throwing me roughly sideways onto the bed and leaping between my gaping, wet thighs once more. Re-sheathing, driving into me, my body arched rigidly, fingers laced fiercely with mine in a white knuckled grip. A low, deliciously guttural noise from him, his head bowed to my throat, his teeth scraped against my heartbeat and I whined.

"Have I got it?" he asked. His voice sounded so different, like a beasts. I managed a soft choking, but he knew what it meant, humming and positioning his hips harder.

"God Lovino… _God, God! Yes, this feels so right…" _his slurred descent into Spanish made my breath catch and my heart flutter. "_You are mine, forever mine. I don't want anyone to ever take you, I wouldn't let that German bastard take you, and I won't let anyone else…" _he keened on, I shoved my hips up to meet his and ground as hard as I could, precum slivered from my erection between our stomachs and wetted already clammy skin. A gentle pulse at the nape of my neck turned to a warming cascade of shivers contained between my shoulder blades, he slapped a hand around my thigh and groaned, body loosing time for a brief second and denying my final shove into the descent of release.

"Antonio I'm coming!" hoarse and crushing, my jollying hips begged him to please, _please_ bring me to orgasm, and hissing he obliged, kissing my mouth as hotly as possible. It was all tongue and wet and little form, but it didn't matter. A single stab more and he had me, howling as the feeling plummeted to the small of my back and blossomed in slow motion between my legs. Three fierce, body strict contractions dissolved into waves of shivers and awed 'oh's, he stiffened above me, trembling silently all over for about three seconds, before the rush of cum in my body instigated another little shake of bliss. It painted deep, previously unreached parts of me warm and sweet, his groan pined up then dropped, panning to a ecstatic sigh as he thrust a few more times to draw release out as long as he could.

My body was spent, my head spinning unreal. The smell of his sweat was three times more noticeable, and the taste of his lips when he kissed me again had changed. It was cooler, a little more sugary, but calming. I liked it, and pressed my tongue in for a deeper taste.

"Lovino." He whispered hoarsely, nosing my neck and sliding out of me without complaint. "That was amazing."

"Mm." closing my eyes, I raked fingers through his hair and twisted subtle curls in my hand. A kiss to his forehead, my heartbeat lulled and he laughed, poking my stomach.

"I love you. I won't let him marry you off like a whore."

"I don't believe you, bastard." Another brief, almost sorrowful kiss to his curved lips, "But that was almost convincing. Good job."

He seemed satisfied, and cuddled against me contentedly. I sighed, unable to share his conviction, but contented knowing that always would I be able to indulge in being held by my love.

…

The card came in February, Antonio gave it to me with his usual smile, tucked between other papers and things to pay and organise.

"Don't just stand there bastard." I waved my letter opener at him and pushed my glasses further up my nose. I needed them in the low light of my study, the small window on the back wall hardly allowed enough sunlight through. A shaft of gold fell on plum carpet, and it was only in the late afternoon that treacle square of sunshine fell on my desk and illuminated my work. That time had since passed. "Get me a coffee and a couple of those tomatoes you grow."

He nodded respectfully and wandered aimlessly from the room, banging the light switch on as he went. I couldn't help but stare at his ass in the new, neatly creased trousers I had bought him. It was small, tight, and I wanted nothing more than to squeeze it hard and make him yelp, feel that full flesh bruise beneath the pads of my fingers.

I bit my inner lip and tore my eyes away, to the pile of stuff he had delivered. One of the packages, a small square one, looked like the jewellery I had been waiting on. Dad would be glad, I could take it to bits and sell it now, and he said he wanted to sell some of the rubies on my behalf. He had a valuable associate he had been seeking a gift for, and apparently jewels would be perfect.

Slipped beneath the package was a small rectangular envelope I paid no attention to until after the package was opened (the contents were indeed the necklace, heavy and antique) and Antonio had returned with my tomato and drink.

"Anything else you wanted Lovi?"

"I told you not to call me that!" scowling, bowing my head to hide pink cheeks, I fanned through bills and bank statements and other such trifles. A note from my younger brother (_Lovino, can I borrow Antonio tomorrow night? I'm having a guest and want him to make his special Spanish soup for me)_ was immediately screwed up and binned. Was the young guy an idiot? Could he not see that Antonio was mine? _Mine_. And no one else's.

"How about 'Lovinito'? It's a… What's the thing… 'cutesy' form of your name."

"I am not cute!" I snapped, dropping my messages and glaring at him as hard as I could. This was no easy feat. He really was gorgeous. And not in a 'Oh he's kinda good looking and I appreciate his looks from a totally heterosexual standpoint' way, but a 'Mother Mary have grace, I want him to fuck me into a wall' sort of way I could never bring myself to acknowledge out loud. "And you watch yourself! Just because I didn't shoot you once doesn't mean I wont the second time."

"Same goes _mi tomate_." A kindly smile, he scratched his head and glanced hopefully at the chair opposite my desk. "Can I sit down?"

"No." I was blushing fiercely now, and no longer wanted him in the room. "Go away and lave me in peace. Run me a bath or something."

"Can I have a bath?"

"Not enough hot water."

"Can I have a bath with you?"

I threw my letter opener at him and he jumped out of the way just in time. Green eyes widened in shock, he made a surprised noise and edged to the door.

"Gosh Lovi, that wasn't very cute."

He was gone again before I could find more artillery.

Antonio had been working under me for not long, I reflected as I reached for that fateful card, but he had in that short period managed to work out fairly accurately just how far he could push and pull me, just how far he could tease and tempt and harass. Maybe, I thought bitterly, it was just petty revenge for keeping him here. He was a very efficient and able soldier, good with numbers and enthusiastic, but I couldn't help but feel that at times he was too good about it all. I mean, usually a person would be pretty ticked in his situation, a little bit overly pissed off. But not Antonio. I secretly wondered if maybe he was poisoning my food, so that I wouldn't notice him exact his revenge.

That being said, I let him get away with a shit of a lot. There were times I even found myself sitting with him and talking as an equal. I learned a lot about him then, like where he came from, and why he had tried to cheat my father of his drug money.

"I have a mother in Spain, she is very, very ill." He had told me, rubbing talented wine soaked thumbs over the balls of my aching feet. "So I work in South America, cutting where I can and sending money back home."

Of course I believed him.

My life with Antonio had quickly reached a comfortable equilibrium, and soon, without me even noticing he had gone from the firey, fighty man I had met on the first day to a soft, laughing kid. Had this have happened suddenly, without the smooth and delicate transitions he had instigated between, I would have knocked him right off on the spot. Unfortunately for me, by the time I had noticed what was happening it was too late. I was hooked.

I was hooked on his smile, his laugh, his voice. I was hooked on his tomatoes and I ate them despite fear of poison. I was hooked on his patience, and his teasing, and sometimes, when he was relaxing, I saw in his eyes that same sharp edge of masculinity I saw on day one. I was hooked on the adrenaline rush that instilled in me too.

I had fallen in love with the man. Not that he made it difficult.

Of course, when I opened the card and saw inside, my reaction was less than enthusiastic.

I dropped the letter and couldn't help but feel a little sick.

…

"Wait, Feliciano." I caught his wrist and he squeaked, head snapping back around in a halo of glimmering silver and white roses.

"Lovi I have to go! They are waiting for me!" his heavily made up eyes, smoky and glowing with an unfamiliar maturity, flicked back, to the pretty lead glass window through which the wedding set up was arranged. Rows of seats, creaking beneath the weight of tall Aryan woman in blue crepe suits and petite Italian's, faced the high white arch of the wooden terrace. The bridegroom, in neat cream, stood whispering nervously to his best man. That silver-haired 'friend' of Antonio's, I thought with a brief stab of regret on how I never actually learned his name.

It was like something out of a storybook. Glowing, warm, beautiful… it suited my brother, dressed in white and glowing like an angel. Untouched and good, a happy ending, a plastic ending. Twenty years from now I could see them still together, living in a classic house in an upscale area, behind neat white picket fences and sending their teenaged children off to school, and I thought to myself

_It's his funeral_

That it could have been me, it SHOULD have been me

But it wasn't.

"…" I fumbled with the words, his skirts rustled on the floor as he turned to face me and the silk gloved hand bearing the heavy bouquet fell limply to his side. The clock in the hall we lingered in chimed one pm.

"… Thank you."

"No, thank you." A small smile, his hand cupped my face and he pressed his lips to mine briefly before backing away again with echoing high healed clicks. "And I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

The last sad smile he cast over his shoulder as he hurried to the door assured me he knew it was not, but I pretended not to realise. Instead, I raised my hand in a goodbye, fully aware that this was the last time I spoke to Feliciano Vargas. Next time I met the man, he would be Feliciano Beilschmidt and no longer a part of my Cosca.

It made me feel a little ill.

I spun on my heel and hurried to the foot of the stairs, there was no-one else, not even servants, in the house. At least, besides me and my Father. The slip of marble beneath my feet was too rich, and too awful. I leapt up the staircase, stopping by my bedroom for a small moment to grab my blazer jacket and tidy myself up, before hot-tailing it to his office.

A deep breath, my hands stilled and I glanced down at the faded bloodstain on the carpet, which didn't help. My heart wrenched, as though it was being pulled up and out by a hook down my throat, and I opened the door.

"Lovino! You are late."

"Apologies." A short bob of my head, my hair fell in front of my face. The click of a lighter told me he had lit a cigar, and I didn't look up until a deep sigh alerted me to his exhale.

"Would you care for one? They are good?"

"Thank you." I stepped forward and took the cigar offered, allowing him to clip and light it with different ends of the same elegant silver tool. "I'm ready when you are."

He nodded, pressing his finger on the button of his speaker phone.

"Alright, Lovino is here. You can let them in."

…

"Please, father, I know it's not my place, and I know you asked him dead." I raised my eyes pleadingly, the man looking back at me over the desk pressed his lips together and I swallowed the realisation that less than ten minutes ago, Antonio was in this exact position, pleading with the exact same heartless man for almost the exact same thing.

His life.

"He's only young, and he's strong. He will be a good soldato for me, seeing as my last was… removed by that American bastard." I licked my lips, trying to convince myself that the words I was saying were genuine. "If you say no, then of course I will comply with your wishes. But, there's nothing wrong with asking first?"

He looked at me thoughtfully, face unreadable, and I scoured my mind for any last bits to add.

"He can work for free?"

This seemed to win him over. When he sighed heavily, I knew I had succeeded and my head and chest flooded with unjustified relief.

"You are right, my boy. You are right. It would be a waste to simply kill him. But how do you know he will be loyal to you? How do you know he won't… sell us out?"

I bit my lip.

"… I don't."

He thought about it for a bit longer. I wriggled my toes in my shoes and thought of him, that thick accent, those vivid eyes. Antonio… even his name was powerful. He sounded like a man who could wield an axe with ease, and fire a gun mercilessly. It sung with a loose, passionate flavour. Something strong and overwhelming, that I couldn't quite understand. My knees felt strange and rubbery. My head was light. The thought of him was making my heart do painfully pleasant cartwheels. "But I can take my chances."

"Be it on your head then." My father waved his hand carelessly and I nodded so hard I wondered if I might nod myself over.

"Thank you."

"Leave, I have papers to do."

I spun on my heel and hurried at an almost run out the door and down the hall. I had left him in the courtyard and locked the door behind me. I was almost breathless when I got there, flinging the door open and barging in.

When I saw him, sitting on top of a dumpster and grinning smugly to himself, my heart almost exploded in a complex display of confetti and glitter. He had a dimple in his left cheek, I found myself wanting to both melt at the sight of it and slap that smirk right off the side of his face.

"What are you smiling for, bastard?" I snapped, closing the door behind me and clenching the muscles in my legs so they wouldn't give way beneath me. Regretfully, the breathlessness, the obvious sign I he'd been running, was not disguised by my weak words. He rolled his head around and licked his lips, smile broadening.

"Mm, I just thought it was funny that you left this here." His hand, (he had beautiful, broad hands I noticed, with fine fingers and a glimmering signet ring on one finger) slipped into his jeans pocket and I stepped backward in horror when he withdrew the handle of my gun from within. "On the ground where you dropped it. Sort of a dumb thing to do, don't you think Lovi?"

"…" teeth gritted, backed against the door and staring in disbelief at the weapon that had now been fully unsheathed, I could hardly make sense of his words. My heartbeat had lifted to a panicked hammer, my brain fizzing shortly in denial. No way, that wasn't my weapon. Surely I wasn't that stupid?

Oh god, yes I was.

I hadn't bothered to pick it up.

And the damn thing was loaded.

He could by all means kill me right now, and get away before anyone noticed I was gone. The thought made me want to puke. As if reading my mind he slipped off the dumpster and shook his shoulders out when he landed. My eyes darted around the space for a shield, a weapon, _anything_, but found not a single hope.

"I could so easily have shot you as soon as you walked through that door." He looked at the gun closely, slight frown darkening his handsome face. "You realise that don't you?"

"Don't kill me…"

"I could have pulled the trigger, and painted that wall with your brains. I'm a pretty good shot you know."

"Please don't kill me…"

The gun was thrust handle first my way, I stared at it as though it may be poisonous for a moment, before realising with a jolt he was handing it back.

"I could have, _Lovino_, but I didn't."

…

I regarded the man opposite me and could barely contain my disgust. He was tall, broad across the shoulders, and repulsively blonde. His jaw had a peculiar squareness to it, and I could see my instant dislike was mirrored by the way it tightened.

"Hello." He spoke rigidly, in a bowing German timber I couldn't stand. It was angular and nothing at all like the soft, sweet voice of the man I happened to be in love with. "Pleased to meet you."

"… Indeed." I couldn't bring myself to say the same.

Behind him, what must have been his brother. A platinum haired man who looked much too young to be heading a family, his alabaster brow prematurely lined with stress.

"I hope that you two will become better acquainted in the future."

My father's hand fell on my shoulder and I winced. It was too small an office for four men inside, yet it was empty without Antonio, who had been sent to the kitchens today while I met my future 'husband' and my father's last hope to make a link with the last great European family.

"While the two of us talk…" the white haired man spoke with a wildly thick accent, even worse than the blonde mans, "you should maybe go for a brief walk in the grounds. Get acquainted and suchlike."

My father thought that was a great idea. He shoved us both out the door.

"… so." I stood in the hall awkwardly, standing and regarding the German through narrowed eyes. "You're Ludzig Beilschmidt?"

"Ludwig." He corrected me formally and I sniffed, rolling my eyes.

"Whatever."

"May I ask your name?"

"No." I spun on my heel and stalked down the hall, toward my room. "But you can stand there until they are finished. And-"

"Oh Lovi, hi." A bubbly heralding from the other end of the hall, both mine and Ludwig's heads snapped around, the hurried footfalls that pattered over carpet were loose and excited. "I've been looking for you all morning! Antonio said he was going to make some special Spanish chocolate dessert for me and-" Feliciano stopped in his tracks when he saw Ludwig, standing dense and disgustingly _German_ in the middle of the hall. "Oh, hello." He blinked large golden eyes at him and tucked a carelessly tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "I'm Feliciano. And you are?"

"…Ludwig Beilschmidt…"

I groaned, eyes rolling, and stomped away. Leave them be, let them do what ever it is they do. It's not like I cared.

I had a tomato bearing man-angel to find.

…

"Where is he?"

I jumped, dropping my book in shock, when two of my father's men crashed into my bedroom with their guns pulled, their suits pressed and tidy.

"Where is who?"

"That bastard of yours! Where is he?"

"Who Antonio?" I frowned, wriggling around in bed, tugging the blanket up to hide any bared flesh. "He's making me breakfast. And he is not a bastard!"

"No he is not, we've checked, and he's gone." One of the men stalked into my room and began rummaging through the chest at the foot of my bed. The other turned and pulled open my drawers. "And that man is worse than a bastard. He's a walking deadman."

Bewildered, I watched them pull everything out of my drawers, mouth gaping hopelessly for speech that had failed me.

"Wha-what are you talking about? CUT THAT OUT!" one of them had stormed over to my bedside, and had started ripping the contents out of my sidetable. Condoms, socks, some photographs…

"WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK YOU ARE-"

"Look, I found it." The man who had emptied my chest was by my window now, pawing through the clothes Antonio had cast there last night before joining me in my bed. A soft flannel shirt, dark green and checkered, was thrown to me in disinterest and he began rummaging through the pockets of his trousers. A flare of anger and protectiveness, I clutched his shirt, unable to get out of bed on account of my nakedness, and reached around my sidetable for my gun.

"Don't, I have it." My hand was whacked aside by goon one, and hissing helplessly I watched goon two empty all the pockets in Antonio's clothes, turning up wads of paper and a fat black wallet.

"What do you want?" I demanded, and goon one sneered.

"That comare of yours is getting a pair of cement shoes."

"What? Why?" I shook my head in disbelief. "That was three months ago! Antonio has been working under my protection, just you bastards wait until my father finds out about this I swear to god-"

"Here, if you don't believe us, look at this." The wallet was thrust into my face, I sniffed, and plucked it from the man's grasp with as much haughty superiority as possible.

"Bastards… I don't know what you are trying to prove… when my father finds out…"

I flipped the wallet open, under the shit-eating study of two apes in suits, and tossed my hair off my face in the way that always made Antonio smile. Inside, nothing remarkable. A fairly flattering photo of me, (I flushed, not having realised he kept my portrait in his wallet) some receipts, a flavoured condom (I preferred going au natural…) and a few hundred euros.

"What? It's just a-"I paused, noticing a fat something sticking out from between the folds and pockets where his cash should have been. "… wallet." I pulled the wad out and unfolded it.

My heart stopped.

Wrapped in several sheets of paper covered in Spanish handwriting, was an ID card.

_Policía __Municipal Madrid_

_Antonio Fernandez Carriedo_

My fingers darted back into the wallet, into the secret pocket, and purchaced something hard and cold.

A badge. I dropped it to my bedspread where it bounced and disappeared amoung my sweet, love scented sheets.

"... he's a cop." I spoke flatly, the disbelief hitting me like a cinder block to my face. The smiles on goon one and twos faces broadened to a dull, canibalistic sort of tone. I rubbed my throat, wanting to throw up. "Since when?"

"Since he turned seventeen."

"Since when have you known this?" my voice spiked in a humiliated scream, i balled my fists and slammed them on my legs. "Since when, you idiots! SINCE WHEN?"

I forced myself not to yeild to the sting of tears rimming my eyes.

Betrayal... it was the only thought or feeling that filled me.

I had learned since birth never to expect much, in life. First born, but second favourite next to a brother sweet as sugar and much more beautiful, I was the bad child, the hardened criminal chesspiece trained to one day be a balding, heartless fat man behind an elegant darkwood desk. I had lived in the lap of luxury, and found it empty. I had had everything I could ever need, but nothing at all I could want.

And then I had gotten Antonio, and despite everything in me, goddamnit I had _hoped_.

Everything he had done for me. All those times he had smiled, and kissed me, and told me stupid, embarrassing little romantacisims and made me feel special suddenly seemed like confetti of lies. His hands in my hair, his body _inside_ my own. Suddenly I felt dirty, and befouled. Lied to. Deceived… goddamnit there was no word to describe the ripping feeling in my gut. All I could think of was that day, that day he had passed me a gun and smiled. Had he been faking that grace? Had he spared me because he knew he could _use_ me?

Had every kiss we had ever shared been cold, and had every time he made me cry his name in bliss been meaningless in his ears?

Had he been looking down on me the whole, sick time?

"Your father gave him a background check. He got suspicious when we couldn't find any information." Goon one took the wallet and the contents back, waving them heartlessly in my face. "At first they thought he was under a fake name, but then a mole discovered his file in the secret police database. Someone must have warned him though. The bastards gone."

I sat there numbly as the two re-assembled my room, trying to absorb al this new information.

"They were… investigating him?" by they I meant my fathers flock. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Goon one glanced at me over his shoulder.

"It's a good thing they didn't, little boss. At least this way you can't be accused of informing him it was time to go."

Cold laughter, they finished up and still cackling they left me, wallet in hand of some one or the other, and pulled my door shut in their wake.

I fingered the cloth of the shirt in my lap, its familiar smell rolling over me and despite my state tensing the area between my legs to slight arousal, and flopped painfully back in bed.

I stared at the ceiling, cracks spidering feebly across the plaster ceiling, just like the cracks of heartbreak were cobwebbing across my soul.

…

Antonio came into my room late, smelling of kitchens and sweat and earth and bearing a small bowl of his wonderful cold tomato soup.

"Where have you been today?"

"In the garden, why?"

"I've been alone all day, thanks a lot. And when I wasn't, I wished I was." I scowled, sat up in bed and snatched the soup away, there was no spoon, so I brought the bowl to my lips and drunk it that way "The stupid potato sucking bastard… and Feliciano! My god!" exasperated I sighed and moved over, so he could sit down on the edge of my bed. "He's even louder and stupider when he's around the asshole. His eyes go all moony, and he clings to him like a bad smell. And the idiot German just _creams his pants_." I sipped the soup again and Antonio nodded sympathetically, smoothing my bedspread over my lap. "Every time we meet its 'is Feliciano here today?' or 'maybe Feli should come with us'. I'm sick of it. He's supposed to be marrying _me_!"

Despite the fact I didn't want to marry him, this little aspect niggled at the back of my mind. He was _supposed_ to be marrying me… but like everyone else in existence he favoured my brother.

That knowledge curled a foul taste at the back of my tongue. Typical… but no less painful the five hundredth time.

"But… you don't want to marry him." Antonio called me out and I sighed in exasperation.

"That's not the point!"

He sighed, touching my hair affectionately. "I know… but hey, that is actually what I wanted to talk to you about." An optimistic smile, I grumbled.

"Close the curtains first, and turn on the lamp."

"It's only seven thirty and you're already in bed…"

"I'm tired! Hurry up and just do it!"

"Okay, okay." He stood, and did as I had requested. My small room took on a very richly cosy quality in the low lamplight, intimate almost. I chocked on my soup, unable to pretend I hadn't just imagined Antonio peeling off his clothes and taking me roughly in my expansive bed, when he flexed his firm arms and combed hands stained with dirt through his hair.

"Wow, careful Lovi."

"Don't call me that!" I wiped my chin, blushing brightly. "Now hurry up and tell me what it was you wanted to say so I can go to sleep!"

So I could curl up under the blankets and masturbate to him furiously.

"Ah, okay. Well, today when I was in the gardens, your fiancés brother, Gi-"

"The white haired demon, yeah I know him." I glared. "Hurry up with your story."

"… Right. Well, he stopped by me, and well… I think that I may be able to get you out of the wedding."

My jaw dropped.

"What?"

"He and I know each other. I was friends with his lover a few years ago… he owes me a favour."

"He what?" I couldn't lift my chin, no matter how hard I tried. Astonished… I was so fat faced astonished. Antonio shrugged happily and ruffled my hair.

"Just say the word, Lovi, and Ludwig Beilschmidt will be marrying your brother. So what do you say?"

"I say…" I caught myself, remembering a valuable piece of advice I had been given once,

_Nothing in life is free…_

"… What do you expect in return?"

He chuckled in the face of my suspicion.

"Lovi, I will take no more from you than you are willing to give." I scowled, and lay down on my bed. "Go fetch that stupid guitar of yours and play me a song. I will think about it, while you are gone."

But I think we both knew I had decided before he even headed to the door.

…

My father ruffled some papers, the trembling, frail man before him had his hands clutched tight, every greying hair on his body quivering with anxiety.

"How much?"

"Fi-fifty thousand." The stranger stuttered, watery eyes lighting on the gun clasped loosely in my hand. "If you please sir, with the greatest respect…"

Sighing, father found the paper he was looking for and glanced over it moodily. "To whom?"

"My wife is very ill…"

"Okay, okay." He scribbled something down on the paper and handed it to the shaking old man. "Take that to my associate downstairs, he will give you the cash." Shortly, he dropped his pen on the desk and waved him away. "Send in the next one, please."

The fellow stared at the paper in disbelief, a wobbly smile like suddenly every Christmas was happening in his life at once crawled over his lips. He looked poor. A farmer maybe? Tatty clothed and utterly blown away.

"Oh my, thank you sir!" he simpered, backing toward the door and holding the slip like a precious child. "Thank you!"

He was waved away with a grumble, I rubbed my gun absent mindedly on my trousers, glancing out the window onto the wedding party below, wondering how long before the two made their vows.

The man who had just left did not get the money because my dad was a generous man. He was far from it. Not because he was a patient, pathetic or a good man. He was not. He got it simply because of obligation, just like every other man and woman who came in here today to make a request. A tradition. A farce of grace that the man had none of in his body. And everyone leaving with money or houses or hits on enemies left with a confidence of gratefulness, my father earned respect he deserved not, and I stood by his right hand as a student, being taught by an iron hand how when he was gone, I too would run my life.

How I too would be the heartless guard of my own prison, within this exquisite, richly furnished room.

"How many more to go?" I asked. "The wedding is almost over." Sure enough, beyond the window of this little cloistered room the union was drawing to a close. All the spectators perched eagerly forward on the edge of their seats, the officiator raising his hand as Feliciano, his smile radiant from all the way up here even, clasped his husband's hands and concluded his vows.

_I now pronounce you joined in the pledge of holy matrimony. You may kiss your bride._

An aching sadness seeped through my breast to see them, the gentle way the blonde bastard held my brother to kiss him, the small smattering of applause form onlookers. I swallowed, turning away. "Never mind. It is over now."

"There are still quite a few to go, the people of this village seem to think we have endless money." He clicked his tongue. "Every single one of them have come begging money, or begging me to kill someone. Is it not tragic, that the world is like so? That all these men can take such a good, happy day and make it into something material and base?" he held his palms out to me, and even though I felt in my heart that never had I heard anything so ridiculously hypocritical in my life, I knew it was not wise to disagree.

Because everyone was hypocritical. Especially my cruel, loveless excuse for a Father. To him, everything was about money or killing or revenge or some other horrid, foolish thing.

He didn't know what it was like. No-one knew what it was like, to stand in a garden ankle deep in soil, feeling the breeze and smelling grass and tomatoes and hearing the sound of laughter from the bottom of a gracious, beautiful heart. Beyond the walls of tradition and family and wood panelled superiority there was a world of fresh earth and a man in a straw hat and a white shirt, with dirt beneath his nails, who wouldn't want a wedding in a fancy garden, accented by silk and ribbons and gold embossed guests, but would favour the country, the firey sunset and the bronzed evening trees. His arms were hot with passion, but heavy with betrayal. The bitter sweetness I suppose. One can be safe and unhappy, unhurtable behind a dark wood desk and prestigious white weddings, or one can leave what they know behind, and risk being torn up inside.

Antonio… God I missed Antonio…

I thought at first it was these longing thoughts, these aching wishes that all those times, all those words and kisses hadn't been lies, that made me see the next person who entered not as just a dark haired guest in a fine suit and trilby, but as a clean faced, ostentatiously bubbly Spaniard teasing me playfully out from behind my father's desk with his lowered eyes and semi-smile. He wore glasses, square ones with dark lenses, and had a short soft looking beard, like he hadn't shaved for four or five days. It was handsome, and made my heartbeat flutter a little. I sucked in a deep breath and my father shifted his weight in his chair, the piece complained beneath him.

"Go-on then." He requested impatiently as the man shut the door behind him and stepped into the centre of the wine red rug before the desk. "You look like a hit-type. Who do you want dead?" my father thought he had them all figured out. If they looked poor, they wanted money, if the wore suits, they dealed in items and matters much more costly.

"No-one." The requester purred in a smooth rumble I recognised immediately. "I came to request something much more valuable than the life of myself, or of any other man."

My gun slipped, it clattered to the ground and my father sent a disapproving glance my way, but I didn't notice.

"Hurry up then, I have many other matters to attend to this day."

"I'm sure you do." He smiled and removed his hat, a headful of softly curling hair, a little longer than it had last been when I ran my fingers through it, fell free and the shadow shifted off his face so as to reveal the slitted, fiery green eyes of a conquistador and an informant, a lover and a fighter and mine, _mine_ now and forever more. "But I can assure you now that _this _is the most important."

…

The fistfall on my door was light, if it hadn't been for my silence, face buried in my pillow to muffle my tearless sobs, I wouldn't ever have heard it.

"Go away" I lifted my head, pushing Antonio's shirt further under my pillow in case it was my father on the other side and he decided to walk straight in. He hadn't been very happy with me, after the whole incident, and no-one had been able to locate Antonio, nor figure out who had tipped him off. A part of me was glad of this. Another part wanted him caught and _murdered_ for what he did for me, for what he had said and…

"Lovi, please let me in, I need to talk to you."

I groaned and sat up, rubbing my raw red eyes.

"I don't want to talk! Leave me alone!"

"You can't mope in here forever you know." my bedroom door clicked open, and cautiously, switching on the light as he did so, he edged inside. "Just because Antonio is gone…"

"Who said anything about that bastard." I folded my legs and sat upright, punching my bed lamely in frustration. "The stupid, lying, cheating bastard who was good for nothing and lied and RUINED EVERYTHING! I HATE HIM!" my voice lifted hysterically, and Feliciano backed against my door, chewing his lip, clearly distressed. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything any more. Especially not this perfect little doll of a brat with his cute face and stupid German boyfriend who actually gave a damn about him.

"I hate him…" lamely, I flopped sideways on my bed, curling into a ball and longing for some cold tomato soup, or maybe a homemade churro, or SHUT UP!

I clapped my hands over my ears and whined.

"Lovi it's okay…" Feliciano was light on his feet, bouncing onto my bed and reaching for me, tugging the limp heavy top half of my body into an embrace and combing his hands through my hair. His shirt smelt like German trash, but he was warm, and he had a heartbeat, and even though I didn't want to I found myself clinging to him, miserable, sobbing and sniffing and wailing and wishing the pain would go away, that the loss and feeling of being cheated would just please go away…

"Shh… Lovino it's okay. It's okay… "

I shook my head insistently, holding him, needing the warmth of his hug and the assurance that he was offering. This wasn't my fault right? It wasn't…

"Lovi, I need to tell you something important okay? But you need to stop talking and focus on me properly. You can still hug me but just calm down a little and breathe."

It was easier said than done, taking a good two minutes of silent crying for my tears to quell. His wet shirt stuck to my cheek, I didn't move from the spot though, and when I was ready, with my heart thumping a dirge in my chest I nodded. He kissed the top of my head assuredly.

"Promise you won't tell daddy?"

I nodded.

"… The reason Antonio left you was because I told him."

I froze, still held firm against Feliciano's small chest.

"What?"

"I told him. I knew daddy was going to kill him when they found him, so I caught him in the kitchen and told him."

I blinked in numb disbelief. Feliciano had _what?_ Feliciano had been the one responsible for letting him escape? After he had betrayed me, and lied to me? Feliciano, my brother, son of the most prestigious mafia family in Sicily had saved the life of a filthy two faced cop?"

"… You IDIOT!" I shoved him backward, balling my fist and aiming to punch him right in the face. "You idiot! Why did you do that? You stupid, fool of a man! He deserved to die!"

"Wha?" he dodged by punch, scooting to the edge of my bed with wide eyes and pale cheeks. "Wha-I thought you would be happy. Aren't you happy Lovi, that he-"

"NO!" I screamed at him, ripping my pillow off the bed and throwing it at his head. "How could I be happy? He was a cheater, a dirty, heartless cheater who deserved what was coming to him! You are and idiot, Feliciano Vargas, the bastard DESERVED TO DIE! He STILL deserves to die!" unable to find any more words to express my rage that it had been not some police informant but this _fool_, this _blood relative embarrassment to the Vargas name_ who had allowed the filth to escape, I began hunting blindly around my side table for artillery. Everything, my Blackberry, my empty glass of water, Antonio's shirt which had been formerly under my pillow… thrown at him, until he stumbled off my bed in quite a state, cheeks flooded with angry roses, hair rumpled and distressed.

"How can you say that about someone who made you so happy Lovino! Do you not know anything? Do you not understand what it was you two had?" to prove his point, he picked up the chequered shirt I had thrown and waved it in a fiercely triumphant gesture. "See? You have his shirt! Why do you still have his shirt?"

"He left it here and I haven't thrown it out yet!"

"_He left it here and I haven't thrown it out yet!" _His mockery of me was high pitched and cruel. "Whatever. And I suppose that guitar in the corner there too, you just haven't thrown out yet?"

Antonio's guitar, a cheep second had thing, was still resting against my wardrobe in all its broken-e-string glory.

"That's exactly right!" I hollered, forcing myself not to blush. "What do you know, you idiot? You who liked fucking _Ludwig_. Ludwig the big stupid German bastard who doesn't smile or laugh or-"

I was cut short when suddenly, totally without warning and not at all Feliciano-ish at all, my brother descended on me with a firm punch, right in my face.

"Don't you EVER insult Ludwig like that again you shallow loveless pig." The soft spitting of his voice sounded strange in my ringing ears, the world spinning around me through a haze of pain was making me feel queasy. "Ludwig is a wonderful, loving man, just like Antonio. If it wasn't for Antonio, I wouldn't even be marrying him! Antonio deserved to live, and I thought that you would think that too. I thought you loved him, like he loved you."

"Antonio did not love me! He didn't love me! If he loved me, he wouldn't have gone without saying goodbye!"

The two of us dropped into a glaring, uneasy silence, broken only by the far away sound of the cooks clacking around in the downstairs kitchen. They surely must have been making a racket, to be heard from my room. That, and roast pork.

"You know Lovino, considering all the trouble he went through to get you out of your marriage, he must have felt something."

Felicano sat down again on the edge of my bed, it creaked beneath him but I didn't send him off.

"You have no idea what he did, do you?"

I shrugged non-committedly.

"Would you like to?"

…

Antonio had known the eldest Beilschmidt boy, many years ago when he was young and aspiring to go to police academy in Madrid. Ludwig's brother was set to be the next don, but never wanted to, had favoured instead a legitimate job and his slightly older male lover, who taught music at a local primary school. The music teacher who happened to be Antonio's flatmate and close friend, later murdered by a rival gang in an attempt to bring down the Haus of Eastern Deutschland, and its mafia, the ironically white haired black sheep of the family identified as the weakest link.

The two parted on cold terms, a sad young man telling another that his decisions were foolish, that this was what the rivals wanted after all, and a hot headed emotionally crippled dragon quite insistent he would kill everyone who had stolen the love of his life.

Antonio, ironically enough was put on the cold case when he finished school. The murderer was found, but not charged on account of a tricky lawyer and lack of evidence. The Beilschmidt family was denied any information in relation to the murder when it was closed, the file was long ago locked away,

Antonio made a powerful enemy that day. An enemy who controlled within two years much of Germany and Austria. An enemy ready to tear down lives and anything in his way.

And when the time came he had approached the enemy, paid in four broken fingers and the killer's name, just so that I could be let go.

So I could be his.

Because he loved me.

…

"Antonio…" breathless, I ran down stairs and rocketed myself into the small boiler room by the kitchen, Antonio's own. "Antonio, thank you! Thank you so much!"

I had never been in Antonio's own personal room before, and so I was, upon arrival, very surprised to see inside. Almost as surprised as he seemed when I clattered in, sitting on the edge of a low, too small cot bed and strumming a battered looking guitar with a bandaged hand. It was small, dimly lit by an unshaded bulb and dominated by a large boiler a collection of mops and buckets in the corner. A chest in which I assumed he kept his clothes bore a stack of magazines and an open toilet bag, from which various items like toothpaste and condoms spilled. He had a large flat suspended over his squinty excuse for a bed, boasting a Spanish football club and looking bright in the otherwise drab space.

"Um, hello?" he frowned, tilting his head to the side. "It's a little late, isn't it? Are you here for soup? There's some in the-"

No time for talk, after the initial shock of seeing his quarters I remembered what I was here for. I rocketed myself at him, grabbing his face between my hands and ramming our lips together as passionately as I possibly could. He seemed startled, guitar slipping from his grip, but regained composure swiftly to return the kiss just as recklessly. In what seemed like a heartbeat, he had me flipped onto my back in the cot, his arms a fortress walling me in, his body pressing on top of me, his tongue exploring every square millimetre of my mouth. The side of my cheeks, my palate, running flatly over the crown of cosmetic dentistry teeth, his hands stroked my hair, one finger coiling a specific and promiscuous spot to tug and tease. I kissed him harder, harder, lost in the heat of his body and forgetting, for a short and glorious moment, that I needed to breathe.

"Lovi, what was that for?" he gasped in astonishment when he pulled away. "Not that I'm complaining but-"

I kissed him again, hot and desperate and so fiercely in love with him in that moment it ached. I truly ached.

"You know what it's for." I managed when we parted again, lifting my hips so I could grind against the leg between my thighs. "I don't know how you did it, but I'm yours now, not that German's. My father told me today, I'm _free."_ I flung one arm around him and gave his ass, his wonderful ass, a good, hard squeeze. "But I don't want to be free. I want to be yours. So fuck me into this mattress right now. Hard. Fuck me like you fucked me with your eyes the day we met." My one hand gripped his collar and I pulled him wide eyed back down to me, so we were nose to nose. "_Now_."

And he obliged that night fiercely, only too happy to tear my clothes off and kiss every square inch of my skin. He rolled me in the thin sheets on his bed, his broad hands caressing every plane, his tongue running over clean cloth and hinting filthily at the wetness and warmth of his mouth against my flesh. He fucked me almost angrily, like a beast, and I wondered if up until this point the sweet, laughing Antonio I knew had been all just a mask, a pretend. Maybe this was his revenge he was exacting. His revenge for keeping me here against his will. Maybe I had unleashed a monster, with a ferocity inside seen in violently verdant eyes and a feral expression, untameable and ruthless.

Maybe he hadn't taken my life that afternoon in the courtyard so he could take my soul away from me now, all the way to his wild garden of carnality and earth and pleasure. This was what I had chosen to do with my freedom, but beneath his body I didn't feel free at all. I felt deliciously bound, delectably obliged to be his toy forever.

His hand, heavy with plaster (what had happened? Probably a garden incident or something…) scraped my face; his grunts and groans testosterone fuelled and heavy. He took me over and over again, until I couldn't do any more and fainted. Maybe he carried on, maybe he stopped, I'm not sure. All I know is that when I woke again, my head was against his thigh, his guitar was in his arms and he picked clumsily a gorgeous, melodic tune.

_A la nanita nana, nanita ea, nanita ea,_

_M__Mi Jesus tiene sueno, bendito sea, bendito sea._

_Fuentecilla que corres clara y sonora,_

_Ruisenor q'en la selva cantando Iloras,_

_Callad mientras la cuna se balancea._

_A la nanita nana, nanita ea._

"… I didn't know you could sing." I murmured, startling him, before slipping back into the endless, velveteen void of sleep.

…

It took my father only a split second to realise the same thing as me, and when he did he reaction was far from a frantic heartbeat and a desperate desire to leap the desk and hold him. It was more drop his papers and give a real bellow, he jumped up in his seat and turned to me.

"Lovino! Shoot him now!"

Well of course I didn't know what to do, standing there shaking with my gun by my foot, wondering if I was about to cry or pass out. It's weird to say, but maybe in the short time he had been away, I had forgotten what Antonio looked like. The gentle bronze of his skin, the agressive green of eyes that for sure lacked all the softness I had known in them once more. He seemed out of place in a suit, just as cold as my father, though I knew his skin was warm and yielding. The thought of it was making me feel dizzy, I wondered how long it would be before I could smell him. I could already feel his eyes burning through me, destroying me. The way he looked at me I couldn't shake, the eyes that had seen me bared and desperate, and the lips that had said they loved me, that _he_ loved me, puckered in a cheeky kissing motion. I had to clutch the edge of the desk, and despite my fathers furious commands I couldn't find the co-ordination to bend down and pick up my gun. I just… I couldn't.

"Lovino!" a big powerful hand was brought down on the desk. "In the name of the Mother Mary do it already, the filth needs to be disposed off."

"What, is the filth exempt from the 'request proposal' thing you have going on here?" Antonio adjusted his dark green tie, not moving his gaze once. "What happened to honouring tradition?"

I could actually hear the nails on my fathers hand scratch the surface of the desk.

"How did you get in?" he asked through gritted teeth. "You should have been shot as soon as you got on my property."

"I'm a motherfucking cop. I can go wherever the fucking I want, do whatever the fuck I want, and arrest whoever the fuck I want." He flashed his badge, evidently a new one, and my stomach jerked. I hoped I wouldn't be sick.

"You can't arrest me."

"I don't want to arrest you. I came here today like a gentleman to make, like everyone else, a request." He snapped his badge shut and stuck it carelessly in his pocket. My father grumbled, placing his hand possessively over mine on the desk.

"Fine, what do you want? Your life spared? Money and for me to come quietly?"

"What kind of a man do you take me for? One of you?" Antonio combed his fingers through his hair and glanced sideways, at the painting on the study wall. It was large and sexually explicit, a woman in the throes of bliss, having been touched by an angel from god. "I want nothing so worthless as any of those things." He smiled, revealing perfect, handsome teeth. "I came here today to request your blessing."

"My blessing for what?"

"Lovino and I, when I take his hand in marriage."

…

**"No Sicilian can refuse any request on his daughter's wedding day."**

…FIN…

_Yay! Another spamano fic! God I missed writing this pairing. Its so… ugh, I love it so much. TwT. In any case, here you go and thanks for reading. Im so sorry that it was über long, but I hope it was worth it? For those of you wondering about the song Antonio was singing toward the end, no it is NOT by the cheetah girls (oh fuck noooo…) although they did do a sort of disney-licious cover that everyone on youtube seemed to be jizzing over, it's a traditional Spanish lullaby/carol, and heres a link to a proper preformace of it. Remove soaces for best results:_

ht tp:/ www. youtube. com/ watch? v=_Ye 04rgq f8I

_in any case, thank you, and um, I don't men to be a nag but PLEASE REVIEW! Even if its to tell me my writing sucks numerous cocks and you hope I choke on a pea at dinner tonight a little bit. Theres nothing that makes me feel more like ive totally wasted my time writing a fic than getting like, one review that says 'oh, this was cool I liked this.' Because wah, what is that? T^T am I really THAT terrible? If I am, tell me, so I can stop and put myself out of my misery. OTL_

_im a pretty friendly individual, im not going to rip your dick off and shove it down your throat if you review. Take pitty? :3?_

_also, thanks titoes, my beta. (forgot to mention her! im a terrible person...)  
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